The rat has long been a major model system for biomedical research. Since the rat genome project was initiated in 1996, there has been an explosion in the number of genomics reagents (10,000 genetic markers, multiple genetic maps, radiation hybrids and their associated maps, >250,000 ESTs), genomic databases, physiological databases, an animal repository, and most recently, the availability of the draft genomic sequence. These reagents, tools and databases have been developed by international teams, but have been largely funded by the combined efforts of the majority of the NIH Institutes, with NHLBI being the leading institute in terms of funding and direction. After extensive discussion with members of the community and with staff at Cold Spring Harbor, the first "rat meeting" was held there in December 1999. The 1999 meeting on "Physiological Genomics & Rat Models" was successful in part because this represented the first rat meeting not dominated by a specific disease group, and helped to initiate the beginnings of the "rat community" of laboratories and investigators interested in applying this model system to their work. The meeting was held again in December 2001, and is planned to be held every two years at Cold Spring Harbor for at least the next five years, with a revised working title of "Rat Genomics & Models". This grant is therefore seeking support to help offset the costs of this important meeting for the next three meetings (2003, 2005, 2007). This support will help maintain the continued quality of the meeting by enabling more speakers to be invited, as well as junior and minority scientists to be supported; thereby allowing the organizers more flexibility in bringing new investigators into this growing field.